What is a sustainable everyday life?
Exploring and assessing the sustainability of everyday travel, sharing and ICT
MIRIAM BÖRJESSON RIVERA
DOCTORAL THESIS
in Planning and decision analysis,
with specialisation in Environmental strategic analysis Stockholm, Sweden 2018
Academic Dissertation which, with due permission of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, is submitted for public defence for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy on Thursday the 12th of April 2018, 13:00, in D2, Lindstedtsvägen 5, KTH, Stockholm.
Opponent: Professor Jillian Anable, University of Leeds.
Members of the grading board:
Professor Helene Brembeck, University of Gothenburg Professor Hervé Corvellec, Lund University
Senior Lecturer Kes McCormack, Lund University
Docent Nandita Singh, KTH Royal Institute of Technology (substitute).
Cover photo: Miriam Börjesson Rivera
Title: What is a sustainable everyday life? - Exploring and assessing the sustainability of everyday travel, sharing and ICT.
Author: Miriam Börjesson Rivera
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and the Built Environment Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering Division of Strategic Sustainability Studies.
ISBN: 978-91-7729-709-3 TRITA-ABE-DLT-181
Printed by US-AB in Stockholm, Sweden 2018.
III Abstract
In a world where the general trend is unsustainable consumption patterns, can sustainable everyday life be enabled? This thesis sought to expand the knowledge base for policies and measures for sustainability, based on the assumption that consumption can be viewed as the outcome of practices in which people engage in their day-to-day life. The thesis addressed the overall aim by examining the following questions: How can information and communication technology (ICT) practices contribute to sustainable everyday practices?
How can sharing practices, ICT-based and other, contribute to sustainable everyday practices? and How can travel practices, ICT-based and other, contribute to sustainable everyday practices?
Empirical and conceptual studies revealed that ICT has become a fundamental and integral part of everyday practices and that digitalisation is a tangible material companion with implications for sustainability. ICT changes practices in ways that can be both positive and negative from a sustainability perspective. These second-order effects need to be addressed early when developing ICT solutions/services.
ICT has also contributed to development of the sharing economy, by making sharing easier and scalable. However, although some sharing practices can contribute to overall sustainability, others could display a high potential and risk, simultaneously. It is therefore important to identify and mitigate negative effects and exploit the full potential of sustainable sharing activities from a policy perspective.
Everyday travel is the outcome of people’s social practices. Travel practices are therefore ultimately interlocked with other practices and spatially and temporally structured. It can thus be quite difficult for city dwellers, although not impossible, to fit in new ways of carrying out everyday city travel rather than existing travel practices. New travel practices should be viewed as complementary if there are no other enabling factors at play, such as convenience, pricing, policies and/or infrastructural changes. If some form of policy and/or infrastructural change is introduced, it is possible to change travel patterns and ultimately reduce travel. Here too, ICT could enable changes in travel practices, e.g. through mediated meetings or vehicle sharing. However, for sustainable everyday travel to become widespread, urban planning issues are important. Policy documents and environmental targets can be used proactively to legitimise new policies that enable more sustainable travel practices.
This thesis shows that everyday practices, in a relatively affluent European urban context, contribute greatly to environmental impacts. Hence, how everyday practices are structured, or could be re-structured, is critical for sustainable development. Practices shape, and are shaped, by their socio-material context. This requires an overall, holistic approach, as offered by practice theory and actor-network theory. A holistic approach is crucial from a sustainability policy perspective, as it enables measures that target some, or all, of the different elements (material, meaning, skills) that constitute practice. It may also be crucial for policies addressing temporal and spatial aspects that structure practices, e.g.
societal schedules and people’s homes in relation to their workplace. This presents an opportunity that policymakers could further explore and exploit.
IV Sammanfattning
Hur kan ett hållbart vardagsliv möjliggöras när ohållbara konsumtionsmönster är den rådande trenden? Det övergripande syftet med denna avhandling är att bidra till kunskapsbasen för åtgärder och policy inom hållbarhet utifrån från antagandet att konsumtion kan förstås som resultatet av de praktiker som människor utför i sitt dagliga liv.
Avhandlingen tar sig an syftet genom att undersöka följande frågor; Hur kan Informations och kommunikationsteknik (IKT)-praktiker bidra till hållbara vardagspraktiker? Hur kan delandepraktiker, IKT-baserade och andra, bidra till hållbara vardagspraktiker? Hur kan resepraktiker, IKT-baserade och andra, bidra till hållbara vardagspraktiker?
Genom empiriska och konceptuella studier visar avhandlingen hur IKT har blivit en grundläggande och integrerad del av vardagliga praktiker, och att digitaliseringens konkreta materialitet har hållbarhetskonsekvenser. IKT förändrar vardagens praktiker på sätt som kan vara både positiva och negativa ur ett hållbarhetsperspektiv. De indirekta effekter (effekter av andra ordningen) som dessa nya IKT-praktiker potentiellt kan ha bör adresseras tidigt när nya IKT-lösningar och tjänster utvecklas.
IKT har också bidragit till utvecklingen och spridningen av den så kallade delningsekonomin genom att göra delning av produkter och tjänster enklare och mer skalbar. Även om vissa delningspraktiker skulle kunna bidra till hållbarhet, visar andra på en hög potential och hög risk samtidigt. Det är därför viktigt att identifiera och mildra negativa effekter och möjliggöra en hållbara delningsaktiviteter fulla potential från policyhåll.
Vardagens resor är resultatet av människors sociala praktiker. Resepraktiker är därför starkt sammankopplade med andra praktiker även i tid och rum. Det betyder att det kan vara ganska svårt, men inte omöjligt, för stadens invånare att genomföra dagliga stadsresor på nya sätt i förhållande till redan existerande resepraktiker. Nya reseformer bör ses som kompletterande om det inte finns några andra typer av faktorer som ytterligare möjliggör dem, som exempelvis bekvämlighet, prissättning, policy och/eller infrastrukturförändringar. Om det finns någon form av policy och/eller infrastrukturförändring, finns det möjlighet att ändra resmönster och slutligen minska resan. Även här kan IKT, i form av medierade möten eller fordonstjänster, bidra till förändringar i resepraktik. Men för att hållbara vardagliga resmönster ska bli vanligare, måste särskild hänsyn tas i relation till stadsplanering. Redan existerande policydokument och miljömål kan också användas på ett proaktivt sätt för att legitimera nya policyer som möjliggör mer hållbara reseformer.
Denna avhandling visar att vardagliga praktiker, i en relativt välbärgad europeisk urban kontext, bidrar till en stor del av miljöpåverkan. Hur vardagen är strukturerad, och hur den kan omstruktureras är därför av stor betydelse för en hållbar utveckling. Praktiker formar och formas av de samhälleliga sammanhang som de är situerade i och därför behövs ett övergripande, holistiskt perspektiv, som praktikteori och aktörs-nätverksteori (ANT) erbjuder. Detta perspektiv är särskilt nödvändigt från ett hållbarhetsperspektiv, eftersom det möjliggör åtgärder som riktar sig mot vissa, eller alla, av de olika elementen (material, betydelse, färdigheter) som utgör en praktik. Perspektivet kan också möjliggöra åtgärder och
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policy som riktar sig mot temporala och rumsliga aspekter som strukturerar praktiker, såsom övergripande samhälleliga scheman och hur och där människor bor i förhållande till sin arbetsplats. Detta är något för beslutsfattare att ytterligare undersöka och använda i framtida policyarbete.
VI Acknowledgements
”Mamma, förlåt, men ditt jobb verkar jättetråkigt.”
Elsa, ca 6 år
Nu är den äntligen färdig! Den där avhandlingen. Så otroligt skönt. Jag hade aldrig kommit i mål om det inte varit för en mängd människor som på olika sätt har bidragit till att denna avhandling överhuvudtaget blivit klar. Först och främst vill jag tacka min handledartrojka;
Greger Henriksson, Mattias Höjer och Josefin Wangel. Ni har alla på olika, men kompletterande sätt, peppat, tröstat, fixat och trixat, och sett till att det blev doktor av mig med. Jag önskar att alla som ska till att inleda ett avhandlingsarbete har sån tur som jag haft med er! TACK!
Jag vill särskilt tacka Vinnova, som finansierat både de CESC-projekt, och Innovativ Parkering, som jag haft nöjet att få jobba i och vars resultat återfinns i denna avhandling. A special thank you to Nandita Singh, for being my internal reviewer and helping me improve this thesis with your insightful comments.
Jag vill tacka CESC-gänget som numer, tyvärr, inte träffas lika regelbundet. Särskilt tack till Elina Eriksson, Daniel Pargman, Hanna Hasselqvist, Daniel Vare, Åsa Svenfelt, Tina Ringenson, Mattias Höjer, Greger Henriksson, Anna Kramers, Cecilia Katzeff och Loove Broms. Ni verkligen har förgyllt tillvaron borta i CESC-korridoren. Tack till alla gamla CESC:are också!
Jag vill tacka alla gamla kollegor från fms och alla nya kollegor på nya S3/SEED, ingen nämnd, ingen glömd. Det är en fantastisk känsla att gå till jobbet och veta att man kommer träffa så många trevliga, smarta, engagerade och roliga människor på en och samma gång!
Särskilt shout out till Vishal Parekh, Nisse Johansson, Fredrik Johansson och Joseph Mulligan som lyser upp ”Storrum 315”.
Jag vill också tacka Linus och mina fina barn, Elsa och Sonia. Jag älskar er så mycket. Tack för att ni orkat med mig under sluttampen. Ni är bäst! Jag vill tacka mamma och pappa, och mina syskon med familjer. Tack Axel, och lycka till i Finland!
Slutligen vill jag ge ett särskilt tack till de boende i Brf Friheten och de anställda på TeliaSonera, och Gun Tidestav på Täby kommun, som så generöst bidrog med sin tid och kunskap och deltog i några av studierna vars resultat går att läsa i denna avhandling.
VII List of papers included in the thesis
I. Börjesson Rivera, M., Eriksson, E. and Wangel, J. (2015). ICT practices in smart sustainable cities - In the intersection of technological solutions and practices of everyday life. ACSR: 22, Proceedings of EnviroInfo and ICT for Sustainability 2015, pp. 317-324, Atlantis Press.
II. Börjesson Rivera, M., Håkansson, C., Svenfelt, Å. and Finnveden, G. (2014). Including second order effects in environmental assessments of ICT. Environmental Modelling and Software (56), 105-115.
III. Börjesson Rivera, M. and Henriksson, G. (2014) Cargo bike pool - a way to facilitate a car-free life? ISDRC 2014: Resilience - The New Research Frontier, Trondheim: Paper 4c4 in electronically published full papers.
IV. Börjesson Rivera, M., Cupitt, R. and Henriksson, G. (2013). Meetings, practice and beyond: Environmental sustainability in meeting practices at work. In: Nachhaltigkeit in der Wirtschaftskommunikation. ed. Nielsen et al.. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
V. Börjesson Rivera, M., Henriksson, G., Höjer, M., Björn, M. and Eriksson, E. Why share?
– An outline of a policy framework. (Submitted)
VI. Börjesson Rivera, M. A passage to car-sharing - The case of implementing a municipal carsharing scheme. (Submitted)
Author’s contribution to papers
I. I was responsible for this paper, together with Elina Eriksson and Josefin Wangel. I was mainly responsible for the section Social Practice Theory and contributed to the Introduction, ICT practices, Discussion and Concluding remarks.
II. I co-authored this paper with Cecilia Håkansson, Åsa Svenfelt and Göran Finnveden. I was mainly responsible for the sections Introduction, A sociological perspective, Rematerialization and Induction, and Changed practices.
III. I was the main author of this paper, with Greger Henriksson contributing to the empirical study on which it is based.
IV. Together with Rebekah Cupitt, I was responsible for all parts of this paper. Greger Henriksson initiated the paper and contributed to the empirical material.
V. I was responsible for this paper together with Greger Henriksson, Mattias Höjer, Michael Björn and Elina Eriksson. I was mainly responsible for sections 1, 2, and 3.2.1- 3.2.4.
VI. I had sole responsibility for this paper.
VIII List of abbreviations
ICT Information and Communication Technology HCI Human-Computer Interaction
ANT Actor-Network Theory SPT Social Practice Theory
ICT4S Information and Communication Technology for Sustainability OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development GHG Greenhouse Gas
IS Information Systems IT Information Technology
S-HCI Sustainable Human-Computer Interaction
IX Contents
Abstract ... III Sammanfattning ... IV Acknowledgements ... VI List of papers included in the thesis ... VII Author’s contribution to papers ... VII List of abbreviations ... VIII
1. Introduction ... 1
1.1. Background ... 1
1.2. Aim ... 1
1.3. Scope ... 2
1.4. Structure of the thesis ... 2
2. Research context ... 3
2.1. Sustainable development ... 3
2.2. Sustainable consumption ... 5
2.3. ICT for sustainable everyday life ... 6
2.4. Sharing economy ... 10
2.5. Sustainable everyday transportation ... 11
3. Theory ... 12
3.1. Advantages and limitations of a social practice perspective ... 12
3.2. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) ... 16
3.3. Challenges and opportunities ... 16
4. Methodology and methods ... 18
4.1. Qualitative and complementary methods ... 19
4.2 Approach to development of concepts ... 20
5. Results ... 22
5.1. How can ICT practices contribute to sustainable everyday practices? ... 22
5.2. How can sharing practices, ICT-based and other, contribute to sustainable everyday practices? ... 23
5.3. How can travel practices, ICT-based and other, contribute to sustainable everyday practices? ... 25
6. Concluding discussion ... 27
References ... 32 Appendix: Paper I, Paper II, Paper III, Paper IV, Paper V, Paper VI.
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1. Introduction 1.1. Background
One of the major challenges in a global perspective is how to enable sustainable development. Many environmental problems need to be addressed, of which climate change is perhaps the most urgent. Due to the fossil fuel-based economy and globalisation, humanity has seen unparalleled development during the past century. This has taken place especially, but not exclusively, in richer parts of the world. In fact, according to Chancel and Piketty (2015), one-third of the top 10% of emitters that contribute 45% of global emissions reside in emerging countries. This calls for truly global climate action. We now have a situation of unsustainable consumption patterns and increasing demand that is threatening the planetary boundaries (Steffen et al. 2015).
Much focus in climate change mitigation to date has been on making the production side more efficient and thereby reducing environmental impacts. The issues of consumption patterns and lifestyles have also been explored, not least from a policy perspective. However, it is important to define what we mean by consumption and what it entails. Consumption is not merely a question of buying goods and services but rather, among other things, it is about social relations (Miller 2012). Ultimately, consumption can be said to be the outcome of social practices that we engage in to live our everyday lives (Warde 2005). Policies and measures aimed at reducing the environmental impact of people’s everyday lives have not yet fulfilled what they intended. The issue of how to enable sustainable everyday life has thus emerged as an important research topic.
1.2. Aim
The overall aim of this thesis is to provide new knowledge on everyday practices, with the ultimate aim of improving the knowledge base for policies and measures for sustainability.
More specifically, the focus is on ICT (Information and Communications Technology) practices, travel practices and sharing practices situated in an everyday context.
As this aim is quite broad, the work was structured using a set of research questions.
• How can ICT practices contribute to sustainable everyday practices?
• How can sharing practices, ICT-based and other, contribute to sustainable everyday practices?
• How can travel practices, ICT-based and other, contribute to sustainable everyday practices?
The definition of ‘ICT practice’ applied (see Paper I) states that an ICT practice is a recurrent situated action where ICT is experienced as a meaningful material element for performing that action. This includes practices where ICT or use of ICT is an integral part and use of ICT in everyday life.
A ‘sharing practice’ is defined as an activity, ICT-based or other, that involves sharing some type of (idle) asset between peers, or business to peer, with or without some sort of economic transaction. Certain aspects of sharing practices are excluded, for example the modes of sharing (successive, simultaneous and shared/divided work) described by Yates (2016).
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A ‘travel practice’ is defined here, in line with social practice theory, as “ways of doing travel”
(Watson 2012). This perspective means viewing different types of transport modes, such as cycling or driving, as travel practices. These travel practices can include the use of ICT as an element, but ICT usage is not a requirement. This thesis concentrates on travel practices in an everyday setting and thus the focus is on everyday travel, such as home-work commuting, work travel and travel related to shopping, thereby excluding e.g. leisure travel and holiday trips.
1.3. Scope
The scope of the thesis, i.e. the object of study, can be defined as measures and concepts for change. By measures is meant both policy instruments and interventions investigated in specific studies. By concepts is meant overarching, general and sometimes ‘fuzzy’ concepts, such as sustainability, sharing economy and smart (sustainable) cities. Change in the context of this thesis means changes in everyday practices with implications for sustainability. Public bodies and other organisations have an important role to play in fostering such change. How this is actually realised is explored in this thesis (Papers III, IV and VI). Change also occurs without public intervention, and the implications of such change need to be identified and assessed in order to inform actors (Papers I, II and V). The scope of this thesis is limited to the city, mainly because the main empirical material upon which the analysis is based was gathered in urban rather than rural contexts. The city, with its great flows of materials and many inhabitants, also provides certain challenges from a sustainability perspective that differ from those faced by people living in rural areas.
1.4. Structure of the thesis
This thesis is divided into two main parts, a cover essay and the appended papers. An outline of both these parts is provided below.
This Introduction chapter briefly introduces the background to the topic and why it is an important issue to explore. The aim and research questions of the thesis are presented and concepts used in the thesis are defined.
Chapter 2, Research context, describes and discusses the research context in which this thesis is situated: Sustainable development, ICT for sustainable everyday life, Sharing economy and Sustainable everyday transportation.
Chapter 3, Theory, presents the theoretical foundations of the thesis and how these are used in Papers I-VI. It also describes the different types of challenges and opportunities that can arise when applying social practice theory and actor-network theory.
Chapter 4, Methodology and methods, gives an overview of the research strategies and methods used in Papers I-VI. It also includes a methodological reflection that elaborates on the type of knowledge yielded by the research strategies and choices of methods used, and what is missed.
Chapter 5, Results, summarises the results in Papers I-VI in relation to the initial research questions.
Chapter 6, Discussion, relates the findings to the overall aim and discusses them in relation to the initial research questions and in a broader context.
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The second part of the thesis comprises Papers I-VI, which are briefly summarised below:
Paper I, ICT practices in smart sustainable cities, argues that the smart sustainable cities discourse needs to be ‘socialised’ and introduces the concept of ICT practices as a way to highlight the materiality of ICT and how ICT has emerged as an element necessary to perform more and more activities.
In Paper II, Including second order effects in environmental assessments of ICT, the overarching aim was to develop methodology for including impacts in environmental assessments in addition to the direct impacts related to the life cycle of ICT products and solutions.
Paper III, Cargo bike pool – a way to facilitate a car-free life?, describes the outcomes of a trial experiment where residents of a housing association in a district south of Stockholm city centre were given access to three cargo bikes to book and use as they wished.
Paper IV, Meetings, practice and beyond: Environmental sustainability in meeting practices at work, explores how work and work travel practices have been affected at a telecom company after extensive meeting and travel policy changes.
Paper V, Why share? – An outline of a policy framework for sharing, develops a six-step policy framework to use if sharing activities are to be directed towards a certain target.
Paper VI, A passage to carsharing, is a case study of how municipalities deal with issues of reaching transport-related environmental targets.
2. Research context
2.1. Sustainable development
Sustainable development is the concept underpinning the research in this thesis. However, it is a much-discussed concept that has been interpreted in many different ways. Sustainable development became generally known through the report Our Common Future (more commonly known as the Brundtland report), which was published by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in 1987. In this report, sustainable development is defined as development that “meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987).
However, the original text goes on to emphasise that sustainable development involves limitations by “present state technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activity. [emphasis added]” (Brundtland 1987). Sustainable development, as defined in the report, can thus be interpreted as development focused on social equity but ultimately conditioned by the limits of the Earth’s systems. The concentric model of sustainable development illustrates this view.
Robinson (2004) traces the concept of sustainable development and argues that it emerged
“as an attempt to bridge the gap between environmental concerns about the increasingly evident ecological consequences of human activities and socio-political concerns about human development issues.” (Robinson 2004: 370). As such, sustainable development has
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also been subject to critique. According to Robinson (2004), much of the criticism stems from a perceived contradiction in terms between growth and development on the one hand, and ecological sustainability on the other (Robinson, 2004: 339-370). Robinson divides the criticisms into three categories: vagueness, hypocrisy, delusions in sustainable development as an oxymoron and delusions in pursuing the wrong agenda. The vagueness stems from a difficulty in defining sustainable development in a unanimous way, which in turn leads to sustainable development meaning “so many different things to so many different people and organizations” (Robinson 2004: 373). However, Robinson argues that vagueness also means that the term can represent an important political opportunity and is thus appropriate in
“the messy world of politics and policies” (Robinson 2004: 374).
The second category of criticism, hypocrisy, is related to vagueness in the sense that the term sustainable development is used for promoting unsustainable activities, e.g. ‘green- washing”. According to Robinson, fear of green-washing has led to an explosion in indicators and assessment methods, as well as sustainability standards and certifications. The third and last category of criticism regarding sustainable development identified by Robinson (2004) is that the concept fosters different types of delusions, which is also the most serious criticism according to Robinson (2004). The reasoning behind this criticism is that, since the premises for the concept (by being a contradiction in terms) lead us in the wrong direction when considering limits to growth in terms of biophysical and social limits, they distract from “the real problems and potential solutions by focussing our attention on the wrong issues” (Robinson, 2004: 376).
According to Höjer and Wangel (2015), the Brundtland definition is often misused and misinterpreted, mainly by not including the limitations to development and clarifications of needs. Those authors claim that the Brundtland report is clear on both issues and specifically states that the needs of the world’s poor should be given overriding priority.
Holden et al. (2014) can be said to agree with Robinson’s criticism that the concept of sustainable development is vague, but their main criticism is that the original scope of the concept is explicitly global, an aspect which is often played down when the concept is used, so that it has become an ideal of all that is good and desirable. Holden et al. (2014) thus stress that, in order to become a useful concept, sustainable development needs to be defined. However, they turn to the original definition and derive four primary dimensions, based on the Brundtland report, as the basis for assessing sustainable development. These are: “safeguarding long-term ecological sustainability, satisfying basic human needs and promoting intragenerational and intergenerational equity.” (Holden et al. 2014: 131). They stress that economic growth is not a primary dimension of sustainable development, in contrast to the so-called ‘triple bottom line’ model, which focuses on the balance between environmental, social and economic issues (ibid.).
The concept ‘sustainability’ is often used interchangeably with ‘sustainable development’.
According to Robinson (2004), academic and non-government organisation (NGO) sources prefer the use of sustainability rather than sustainable development, due to the view that development is synonymous with growth (Robinson, 2004: 370). Sustainability is then viewed as focusing “on the ability of humans to continue to live within environmental constraints” (ibid.). However, there is also criticism of sustainability as a concept. For example, Pargman and Raghavan (2014) argue that, within the sustainable human-
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computer interaction (S-HCI) community, “there is little discussion about what actually constitutes sustainability” (Pargman and Raghavan 2014: 638), which consequently results in definitions so broad that they are nearly meaningless.
In a discussion of sustainability, Heinberg (2010) states that, even though the term means
“that which can be sustained over time” (Heinberg 2010:1), it has come to be understood as referring to “practices that are reputed to be more environmentally sound than others.”
(ibid.). In order to refine the concept of sustainability, Heinberg (2010) formulates five axioms of sustainability which describe the conditions for which a society can be maintained over time. However, Heinberg’s axioms do not consider what type of society is to be maintained and could be interpreted as deep sustainability with standpoint in limits to growth. What is missing in the axioms proposed by Heinberg is any type of discussion on what a sustainable society could and should look like. Raworth (2012), on the other hand, outlines a framework which brings together the planetary boundaries and social boundaries to create a safe and just space in which humanity can thrive, in order to provide a new perspective on sustainable development. Raworth concludes by stressing that: “The critical economic question is whether or not global GDP growth can be harnessed as a tool for moving into the doughnut – or whether a different approach to economic development is needed.” (Raworth 2012: 20).
The Raworth model is attractive, as it encompasses the environmental limits and deals more explicitly with issues of social equity and justice, much in line with the original definition in the Brundtland report. However, the papers in this thesis focus mainly on the environmental aspects of sustainability.
2.2. Sustainable consumption
Questions relating to how to live a sustainable life and how sustainable practices can be promoted, facilitated and spread amongst citizens have been discussed and studied with more intensity in the past two or three decades. The point of departure has generally been the definition from the Oslo symposium on Sustainable Consumption in 1994, which defines sustainable consumption as: “the use of goods and related products which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimising the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardise the needs of future generations.” (Norwegian Ministry for the Environment, 1994). However, more resource-efficient and ethical systems of productions do not by themselves “ensure that consumers choose to buy the greener products or that the scale of material throughput remains within ecological limits.” (Jackson, 2005: 20). Another way of framing this contradiction is by talking about ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ sustainable consumption.
Lorek and Fuchs (2013: 36) differentiate between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ sustainable consumption approaches, where the former involves a focus on “improving the efficiency of consumption” and the latter assumes that changes in consumption levels and patterns are necessary to achieve sustainable consumption.
The majority of mainstream policies have had little impact on citizens’ increasing consumption levels (Wolff and Schönherr 2011). It is reasonable to assume that one contributing factor to this failure is an overall framing of these issues as the responsibility of the individual citizen-consumer (Hobson 2002; Isenhour 2010a). Hobson refers to this discourse as “rationalisation of lifestyles” (Hobson 2002) and argues that it does not seem
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to lead to sustainable consumption. Isenhour (2010b) points out that, even if citizen- consumers are highly aware and have knowledge about sustainable consumption, there are barriers that make it difficult to change or lower their overall consumption. Isenhour (2010b) concludes that consumer responsibility and choice must be complemented not only by corporate leadership, but also by implementing public policies and programmes to enable long-term change regarding consumption. According to Spaargaren (2011), two paradigms have dominated environmental policy strategies to date – the individualist and the systemic/structural paradigms. There are problems with both, the former placing too much responsibility on the individual citizen-consumer and the latter proposing a view of the citizen-consumer as passive with no real agency.
Spaargaren (2011) argues that theories of practice offer a third paradigm that “make[s]
possible a non-individualist understanding of environmental behaviours while pointing at new directions for global climate governance.” (Spaargaren 2011: 813). From a practice perspective, consumption is viewed as the outcome of the social practices in which people engage (Warde 2005), which comprise elements that are integrated when practices are enacted (Shove et al. 2012). These elements can change over time, which in turn changes the practices, and consequently can have impacts on whether a practice is more or less sustainable. The point is that practices are dynamic and outcomes of emergent processes (Shove et al. 2012). A practice approach can therefore make it possible to “simultaneously analyse and assess the crucial influences of socio-technical dynamics operating at higher levels of system reproduction, on the one hand; and lifestyle- and lifeworld dynamics operating at the level of situated practices, on the other.” (Spaargaren 2011: 821). In this thesis, a practice perspective on sustainable consumption is mainly applied.
2.3. ICT for sustainable everyday life
In more affluent parts of the world, it is safe to say that digital technologies are now an integral part of societal structures and that they have indeed changed everyday life in a relatively short time span. The internet, together with computers and smartphones, have transformed both work and leisure in ways perhaps not even imaginable when our parents were born. Digital services and solutions have altered how we keep in touch with friends and loved ones, how we watch television or listen to music. The bank or travel agency is no longer an actual office with business hours, but has become a website or smartphone app. The same is true for an array of shops. Many government and public services have gone digital, which means that, in order to participate in society today, citizens need to be equipped with up-to- date ICTs.
ICT is thus integrated into most of our daily practices. Through products such as computers, smartphones and tablets, we now lead our lives and perform routine activities in quite a different way than just 10-15 years ago. However, this has a number of implications. First, as ICT is integrated into daily practices and with the diversification of practices, there is growth in the ecology of domestic digital technologies used for daily practices (Bates et al.
2015). This in turn adds to an increase in data demand (Lord et al. 2015) and energy demand, as daily practices tend to become more energy-intensive due to integration of ICTs into everyday practices (Røpke and Christensen 2012).
Another implication or effect of the pervasiveness of ICT integration into daily practices is that it “supports a partial decoupling of practices from their previous time-space location.”
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(Røpke and Christensen 2012: 354). This decoupling leads to a more fractured timescape by softening both time constraints and space constraints. ICT helps to fill up ‘dead time’ and increases multi-tasking (paying bills while listening to music on the commute to work). It also leads to partial de-localisation of practices, since many practices can now be performed without being in a specific location. However, there are still practices that require being at a specific location due to place-specific objects for performance, require physical co-presence or involve normative expectations related to the place for practice performance. Røpke and Christensen (2012) conclude that the integration of ICT into daily practices has effects that are not always taken into consideration when discussing the potential of ICT for reducing environmental problems, one being the possible offset of energy savings achieved by e.g.
dematerialisation due to the increased data traffic resulting from streaming and mobile internet.
Preist et al. (2016) argue that the environmental impact of digital infrastructure needs to be addressed also from a design perspective. They claim that the current design paradigm, referred to as ‘the cornucopian paradigm’, is rewarding faster, richer and more pervasive digital services, and that this development is having the effect that “Services most users were happy without become essential to everyday life for the majority of the populace in developed countries.” (Preist et al. 2016: 1326-1327). Those authors point out that, even though strategies for mitigating environmental impacts of the ever-growing digital infrastructure have value, there is currently unsustainable growth in energy consumption.
This claim of continuous growth is disputed in a study of the energy and carbon footprint of the ICT and entertainment and media sector in Sweden 1990-2015 (Malmodin and Lundén 2016). That study found that the footprint due to data traffic has started to decrease in Sweden and attributed this break in trend to increasing use of smartphones and tablets, which are replacing more energy-intensive devices such as personal computers and TVs.
Nevertheless, Preist et al. (2016) make a convincing case that the eco-efficiency paradigm is not enough and that other paradigms, such as Computing within Limits, Collapse Informatics and Responsible Design and Sustainable HCI 2.0, could inform a different approach within human-computer interaction (HCI) and interaction design that includes the total impacts of ICT and helps steer research and development in a more sustainable direction.
ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S) is an emerging research field which can be divided into two subcategories: Sustainability in ICT and Sustainability by ICT. The former is about making hardware and software more sustainable, whereas the latter is concerned with ICT as a way to facilitate sustainability. In this regard, ICT is put forward as a way to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in sectors such as agriculture and land use, buildings, manufacturing, power, consumer end-use and service. ICT is also described as both an optimisation driver in transportation and a tool for substituting travel altogether (GeSI 2012, 2015). ICT can be used for dematerialisation, substitution and optimisation, to mention a few areas. Within information systems (IS), the work is typically divided into Green IS, which is “the study of the design, implementation, and impact of information systems that contribute to sustainable business processes” (Malhotra et al. 2013: 1266), and Green IT, which is “the study of technology energy efficiency and equipment utilization” (ibid.) Within S-HCI, much focus has been put on exploring ways to visualise data and persuasive technologies. The assumption is that, through feedback on behaviour, people can be encouraged to make more
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sustainable choices in their everyday life. This is explored by e.g. Froehlich et al. (2009). This approach, namely solving sustainability problems through making people aware of a certain part of their daily routine in order to make them change, has met certain criticism. However, there is also a body of literature which criticises what could be called ‘mainstream ICT4S and SHCI’, for want of a better term. This criticism basically concerns the lines of difference between sustainable development and sustainability as described by Robinson (2004).
Looking at green IT from a human rights perspective, Cramer (2012) argues that, when green IT is being propagated, the challenges of pre-manufacturing and post-disposal are often glossed over or even forgotten. However, policymakers must take into consideration the environmental and social costs of ICT when promoting green IT. Cramer points to a conflict between different human rights as the dependence on ICT continues to grow worldwide. ICT obviously has environmental impacts itself due to the production, use and disposal of ICT devices. In the production phase, there are several aspects to consider, such as extraction of rare earth metals in conflict areas such as Democratic Republic of Congo. A life cycle assessment (LCA) study on smartphones has shown that in the manufacturing phase, the largest impacts are due to production of integrated circuits (Ercan et al. 2016), which are an integral part of all ICT devices.
The short lifecycle of ICT devices is yet another sustainability problem. This short lifecycle is a consequence of business models and fast technological and product development in the ICT sector, which leaves fully functioning devices obsolete due to loss of functionality. This development has effects such as increasing amount of electronic waste which then needs to be recycled in proper ways. In a paper discussing the obsolescence of end-user devices, Remy and Huang (2015) present different approaches that interaction designers and S-HCI researchers could use to tackle this issue. However, they do not present any specific examples of how this could be achieved. The end of life and disposal of ICT devices is also a continuously growing problem. Discarded ICT products are shipped and dismantled in poorer parts of the world under hazardous conditions that affect both the people working with recycling and the environment (Cramer 2012; Umair and Anderberg, n.d.; Umair 2015).
Another strand of criticism is that efficiency measures do not always lead to the intended result and that simply focusing on ‘getting more for less’ will not help resolve underlying sustainability problems, such as the need to reduce resource use and emissions in order to stay within the planetary boundaries. Hilty (2012) argues that, when discussing increased efficiency and/or rebound due to new technology, it is imperative to take into account contextual factors. Based on a case study of Japanese vending machines, he concludes that the most important step is perhaps to look for the limiting factor that hinders growth in the system being considered for energy efficiency measures. If the factor happens to be something other than energy, e.g. space, the risk of rebound effects is low, according to Hilty.
If the limiting factor happens to be energy (cost), then growth must be prevented through regulation in order to reduce energy use (Hilty 2012).
Persuasive sustainability, i.e. the use of persuasive technologies in order to change attitudes or behaviours in a sustainable direction, has been explored and to some extent applied.
However, it has also been criticised for being a modernist technology working “by narrowing its focus to a limited framing of sustainability, human behaviour, and their interrelationship”
(Brynjarsdottir et al. 2012: 947). It thereby overlooks the systemic nature of sustainability
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as a problem and only concerns itself with “resource optimization pursued by individual rational actors conceptualized apart from the messy realities of everyday life (Brynjarsdottir et al. 2012: 954). Consequently, those authors argue, this perspective is problematic since it tries to provide technical solutions to social problems. It is also failing in that endeavour due to little evidence of efficiency and repetition rather than inventiveness. What is needed is alternative approaches that take a standpoint in persuasion as a process, contribute to reflection, move beyond the individual and include users in the design process. Agreeing with parts of the extant critique, Knowles et al. (2014) nevertheless argue that persuasive technologies have a role to play but that the underlying theory needs to be changed. They conclude that “there is tremendous opportunity for radically different persuasive technologies that affect a principal cause of unsustainable behaviors.” (Knowles et al. 2014:
1042).
In his critique of technology as the solution for education and ICTD, Toyama (2015) states that “there’s a big difference between learning the digitals tools of life […] and learning the critical thinking skills necessary for an information age” (Toyama 2015: 13). Toyama argues that “technology’s primary effect is to amplify human forces” (ibid: 29). If we take this idea and apply it to sustainable everyday practices, it is reasonable to assume that ICT cannot really make everyday practices more sustainable just by being applied; to some extent the sustainable everyday practices need to be in place to begin with.
According to Strengers et al. (2015), energy demand policy and research often assumes an ideal rational adult, ‘Resource Man’, as the target audience to address. However, this type of assumption overlooks the distribution of agency between human and non-human actants and how energy demand is the outcome of social practices. There is simply no Resource Man’. Strengers et al. (2015) suggest that policy makers should focus instead on ways to develop and disseminate low-energy practices to replace existing energy-intensive practices.
This work would require the engagement of other actors, including e.g. product designers, housing developers and policy makers.
There are ways in which ICT can contribute to sustainability. Hilty and Aebischer (2015) point out two crucial conditions for this becoming a reality: stopping the growth of the footprint of ICT and finding “ways to apply ICT as an enabler in order to reduce the footprint of production and consumption by society” (Hilty and Aebischer 2015: 4). The first condition, the environmental impacts of ICT, has already been discussed in this chapter, while the latter is discussed below.
Hilty and Aebischer (2015) present two enabling effects of ICT services that can contribute to sustainability: substitution effects and optimisation effects. In a report exploring how ICT could support sustainable consumption, Höjer et al. (2015) identify four ways in which ICT can achieve this: substitution, intensification, leaning processes & activities, and information. Both Hilty and Aebischer (2015) and Höjer et al. (2015) define substitution in similar ways. However, what Hilty and Aebischer refer to as optimisation effects could be said to correspond to what Höjer et al. (2015) call intensification and leaning processes &
activities.
Substitution means that ICT services and solutions can substitute for more resource-intense forms of consumption. One example is that obtaining music and films no longer involves
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buying physical CDs and DVDs, since these are instead accessed through subscriptions to digital streaming services. Another example is that mediated meetings such as video meetings and/or telephone meetings can substitute for meetings requiring travel.
ICT can also help intensify the use of resources, through e.g. sharing and/or reuse of products, thereby potentially contributing to reducing the product volumes required, and consequently reducing environmental impacts. Following Hilty and Aebischer (2015: 29),
“All processes that have a purpose can be optimized by making use of information”. This is in accordance with how Höjer et al. (2015) envisage that ICT can make processes and activities more efficient.
ICT can be said to be an integral part of contemporary everyday life and to some extent a requirement for a ‘normal’ life and inclusion as a citizen. As such, ICT has an enormous impact. However, ICT is better understood as a means rather than an end, and in order to change some things other things need to be taken into consideration. ICT alone cannot solve a ‘wicked problem’ such as unsustainability (Rittel and Webber 1973; Rayner 2006); but it can be one of many ways to improve sustainability. ICT thus needs to be accompanied by other elements or factors in order to function in the desired way. These could include policies, restrictions, taxation, or a different approach to planning the built environment.
2.4. Sharing economy
The sharing economy is an interesting research topic, since it brings together the issues of digitalisation and sustainability under the umbrella of everyday consumption.
Sharing economy activities include “recirculation of goods, increased utilization of durable assets, exchange of services, and sharing of productive assets.” (Schor 2014: 2). This trend to recirculate and increase utilisation of assets has emerged partly from a disenchantment with hyper-consumerism (Botsman and Rogers), but also “from a number of technological developments that have simplified sharing of both physical and nonphysical goods and services through the availability of various information systems on the Internet.” (Hamari et al. 2016: 2048).
Pargman et al. (2016) define the sharing economy as “the practice of making use of underutilized physical resources that had previously been neglected by using computer systems as a mediator” (Pargman et al. 2016: 2). Bradley and Pargman (2017) note that platforms for sharing can be organised as for-profit or for-benefit, and that they can operate on global and local scale.
Due to ICT, sharing has become easier and, like ICT, the sharing economy comes with a promise of being a means to more sustainable consumption. Some aspects of the sharing economy can be categorised according to the four ways in which ICT can contribute to sustainable consumption (Höjer et al. 2015) (see section 2.3 of this thesis). In particular, this applies to those sharing activities that involve intensifying the use of existing (and idle) assets. However, it is difficult to say anything conclusive about the environmental impacts and further sustainability potential that the sharing economy could have. This is mainly a result of lack of research (Demailly and Novel 2014), but also because, as Schor points out:
“technologies are only as good as the political and social context in which they are employed.” (Schor 2014: 12). However, Skjelvik et al. (2017) indicate that in a Nordic
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context, there are initiatives in e.g. transportation and housing/accommodation that could have a positive environmental impact. Transportation is the sector with the greatest potential for emissions reduction, mainly due to “reductions in private car driving and reduced car production” (ibid: 67). Skjelvik et al. (2017) also stress that, in order for the potential environmental benefits to be realised, emissions and other environmental challenges stemming from sharing activities need to be addressed through e.g. regulations and taxes.
To conclude, there are some indications that sharing activities could contribute to sustainability, but this will primarily be a question of how such sharing activities and sharing practices are situated within a larger socio-technical context.
In this thesis, the focus is on sharing practices that potentially contribute to sustainability by intensified use of resources. Specifically, the work examines cases of sharing practices in well-defined local contexts. These sharing practices rely on social organisation to enable sharing, which can be achieved with the help of ICT or not. In this thesis, both alternatives are considered. Two of the research papers investigate the process of implementing sharing of vehicles and one paper develops a policy framework for identifying potentials and risks of sharing activities from a sustainability perspective.
2.5. Sustainable everyday transportation
Everyday travel can be described as the outcome of available transportation systems, urban planning and ICT solutions. In order to make everyday travel more sustainable, there is a need to make low-carbon transportation modes more available and attractive. There is also a need for policies that enable, and restrict, travel and accessibility in line with sustainable development. Banister states that: “The new sustainability approach requires actions to reduce the need to travel (less trips), to encourage modal shift, to reduce trip lengths and to encourage greater efficiency in the transport system. A sustainable transport system means that we will travel less.” (Banister 2011: 1541). This differs from the more conventional view on transport planning, which focuses on travel as a derived demand and on travel cost minimisation (Banister 2008).
Watson (2012) argues that “practices (and therefore what people do) are partly constituted by the socio-technical systems of which they are a part; and those socio-technical systems are constituted and sustained by the continued performance of the practices which comprise them.“ (Watson 2012: 488). Practices are also linked together and form bundles and complexes (Shove et al. 2012), and this inter-relatedness of practices matters when analysing travel practices. Looking specifically at the commute, Cass and Faulconbridge note that it is important to take into consideration “how sequences of practice generate temporal and spatial influences on commuting mode” (Cass and Faulconbridge 2016: 11). More generally speaking, this means that travel practices and modes are an outcome of the temporal and spatial aspects of established practices. This implies that patterns of everyday travel are
“connected to how households are provisioned, where children go to school, how work and leisure are conducted, and so on.” (Spurling et al. 2013: 29-30).
The role of ICT has already affected everyday travel in significant ways, both as an integral part of most transport systems and as a major influence in travel practices. ICT can also be an important part of sustainable mobility through e.g. travel information systems, enabling
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distance working and sharing of transportation and fee collection systems (see e.g. Gössling (2017) for a typology of ICT and transport items). ICT has also been a driver in the development and proliferation of different types of transportation sharing activities, such as car-pooling, ride sharing and car-sharing (Rayle et al. 2016). According to Canzler and Knie (2016), use of ICT has been integrated into everyday life in ways which “undermine the monopoly of car in its formerly unique functionality as the sole, reliable transport option, opening up the decision horizon for the individual.” (Canzler and Knie 2016: 60). However, Gössling (2017) concludes that, even though ICT can support sustainable modal changes, the overall impacts of ICT on transport behaviour are “complex, and often contradictory”
from a sustainability perspective on the transport system as a whole (Gössling 2017: 20).
This conclusion echoes the argument by Lyons (2016) that the relationship between ‘smart’
and ‘sustainable’ in urban mobility has lacked clarity, which has implications for the type of urban mobility pursued. Lyons therefore sees a need to align the paradigms of smart and sustainable and proposes a definition of smart urban mobility as: “connectivity in towns and cities that is affordable, effective, attractive and sustainable” (Lyons 2016: 6). This definition highlights both the technological and social considerations of urban mobility, while at the same time taking into account sustainability aspects.
To ensure that sustainability goals are reached, it is consequently important that transport policy, urban planning and the role of ICT are discussed together. It is also crucial to explore and understand how travel practices are interlocked with other practices in bundles and complexes, and how these could be changed to contribute to sustainability.
The main focus of this thesis is on everyday travel practices, which are explored from an environmental sustainability perspective. The following aspects are given particular attention: policies in municipalities and companies to steer and reduce business trips by staff; sharing of vehicles; and ICT use for sharing and for substituting travel with other forms of communication.
3. Theory
In order to study the assemblages that constitute everyday life, theories and perspectives that take into account the relations and associations between social and material can be helpful. There follows a brief description and discussion of the two main theoretical perspectives used in this thesis; social practice theory (SPT) and actor-network theory (ANT).
3.1. Advantages and limitations of a social practice perspective
In this thesis, social practices are explored using a sustainability lens. Existing social practices are studied to investigate their potential to become more than just ’niche’ practices.
Existing (un)sustainable practices are also studied, to explore conditions and developments that could contribute to more sustainable practices. Since the main focus is on sustainable social practices, social practice theory in particular is a critical foundation for this research.
One reason for this is the context of the research as a PhD project at a technical university, where the focus is problem-solving through technological development. This thesis argues that sustainability problems need to be re-framed, e.g. in terms of new socio-technical system, rather than only new technology. Theories of practice could be of great importance
